


Knowing

by Bweasleyisourking



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, HP: EWE, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 21:58:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3224936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bweasleyisourking/pseuds/Bweasleyisourking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione reflects on her relationship with Severus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowing

She supposes, now that she has the benefit of retrospect, that her maturity is what brought them together. Well, that and proximity. She can only imagine what her parents, or Professor McGonagall, or the Headmaster would have said if they had known at the time.

“Taken advantage of!” “Abuse of power!” “Completely inappropriate!” 

It hadn’t been, though: not really. If anything, she took advantage of him. She had needs, had been desperate to learn, but had been smart enough to know she couldn’t learn from any of the boys in her year, or even the year above her. They would be too inexperienced, too indiscreet. She needed a man who could teach her. And she had found that, and so much more, with her Potions Master. Was it inappropriate? Probably. She hadn’t cared at the time, and as far as she knew, neither had he. 

Mature. That’s how everyone had always described her, for as long as she could remember. Her teachers had said it so complimentarily. “Hermione is the most mature student in my class,” they had all said proudly, looking at the young girl with affection. Her parents had beamed. Mature. She wore the word like a badge of honor. It was an integral part of the fabric of her very existence; combined with her intelligence, it was the basis for every thing she knew about herself. Mature. Intelligent. Those words were her faithful companions, the beacons of hope she clung to as she realized that her peers did not value those qualities the way her parents and teachers did. Maturity and intelligence were not seen as virtues at age eight, or eleven, or sixteen. She had Harry and Ron, of course, but with the boys she had to downplay her maturity and intelligence. They were her only friends, yet something instinctually told her she could not be her true self with them. 

She can still recall the first day she noticed the spark between them. It was a Tuesday. She wasn’t sure why she remembered that detail, but for some reason it had stuck with her after so much other minutia from her sixth year had been forgotten. It was November; she remembered that clearly because it was two months after her seventeenth birthday. They were practicing nonverbal shields. She had succeeded at mastering the basic shield, so while her classmates made half-hearted attempts at blocking spells, he had stepped behind her and demonstrated the proper wand motions for a shield that would protect herself and anyone standing within three feet of her. He was standing behind her, guiding her arm through the proper techniques, when she first noticed the leanness of his body, the tight muscles of his arm that brushed against her. He smelled so clean, of sandalwood and honey, that she lost herself in the scent and ignored his instructions. He looked down at her then, but instead of the derision she anticipated she found in his eyes a mixture of confusion and desire. The innocent touch had become so much more as they experienced a moment of mutual awakening. 

He had been the one to snap out of the spell first, stepping away from her hurriedly and making a nasty comment about her inability to focus. It hadn’t stung though, the way his comments normally did. 

That might have been the end of it: one moment of sexual tension, remembered with a mixture of embarrassment and excitement. But Hermione Granger was mature. Mature enough to know exactly what she wanted from the lean man with harsh eyes and pale skin. Instead of forgetting the moment, she began to watch him more closely. While he lectured, she watched him with hungry eyes as his deep voice stirred passions within her she had been previously unaware of. 

He had felt it too. His gaze would linger over her just a moment too long. Not enough to arouse the suspicion of any of her classmates, but just enough to arouse her. 

Two weeks after the moment they had shared in the classroom, she stormed away from the Quidditch pitch after Gryffindor’s victory over Slytherin. She had been furious with Harry when she thought he had slipped Ron Felix Felicis; she was angrier now with Ron, who had acted childish about her lack of faith in his Quidditch abilities. She stomped off to complete her rounds, proving to herself once again that she was mature. 

Her mind was full of thoughts of her surly professor as she walked the no longer forbidden but still mostly unused corridor on the third floor. Only the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was housed here now; it was undoubtedly this fact that drew her to the corridor. Its mostly uninhabited state should have made it a favorite of every hormone-crazed couple at Hogwarts, but the proximity to Professor Snape’s classroom ensured that it was always deserted when she made her rounds. She had taken a break from her rounds to stare out across the moonlit grounds from a large window when she heard footsteps approaching. The heavy footsteps were familiar to her; she knew it was the man who had haunted her dreams of late. She turned to face him and their eyes met in a moment of shocking electricity. The air around her crackled with something; desire, she had thought at the time, but now she recognizes it for what it truly was: magic. She had felt desire many times since that night, and it had never rattled her to the core the way this had. No, it was magic that swirled around them, desperately attempting to draw them together. He stood at the other end of the corridor, far enough away that she couldn’t see his eyes clearly. From the look on his face, though, she knew he felt the magic swirling around them too. 

Once again, he broke the spell first. Turning sharply on his heel, he bolted into the nearest classroom, seemingly desperate to be away from her and the tug of this elemental magic. For the first time in her life, Hermione Granger made a decision without thought of consequence or collateral damage. The magic around her surged as she rushed to the door he had just entered. 

She found him inside the dusty classroom with his back to her, leaning against a wooden desk. His head was down and his arms were ramrod straight, supporting himself. He was breathing heavily, and Hermione almost smiled at the realization that he was just as affected by this pull as she was. “Leave me,” he breathed without looking up at her. “Leave me now. I cannot bear to be near you.” His voice was raspy, as though every word pained him. 

His words fell on deaf ears. She rushed toward him, full of awakened feelings and Gryffindor courage. He spun around as he heard her approach, and for a moment she thought he might hex her. Instead, he allowed her to throw herself into his arms and embraced her tightly, tangling his fingers in her thick curls and pressing his hard body against her own. There were sparks when he kissed her. The air thrummed as he crashed his lips down on to hers, kissing her roughly and desperately. He was like a man possessed as his hands roamed her body, relishing every inch of her softness. 

It was many years later before he told her his account of that night: how he had been just distressed enough by the crumbling world around him to give into his baser desires. How lovely she had looked in the moonlight; like Selene, he said, Goddess of the Moon. How he had felt the pull of the magic too and was terrified, knowing the gravity of the situation. How he had ducked through the nearest door, desperate to escape her and the power she wielded over him. How he had turned at her approach and threw caution to the wind, choosing her. How he had known the first moment his lips touched hers that he would have her, the rest of the world be damned. How painful it had been to draw away from her, to pull away from her embrace with one last kiss. How he had returned to his rooms and wept with frustration. 

Of course, she didn’t know any of this at the time. She only knew the pain she felt as he drew away from her and swept from the room, leaving her with unfulfilled need and aching body. When she returned to the Gryffindor common room and found Ron and Lavender locked in a passionate embrace, she fled. She cried tears of frustration and longing and she hated him in that moment, hated how carelessly he could cast her aside without allowing her the release she had so desperately needed. Harry and found her, then Ron and Lavender. It had been childish of her to set her conjured birds on Ron, she knows now, but at the time she had been so terribly angry at the thought of Ron having with Lavender the very thing she had been agonizingly denied less than an hour ago.

It could have easily ended there too, she sees now. But it hadn’t, of course. That was just the beginning of their secret dance, weeks of stolen glances and purposefully avoided contact. She tossed and turned every night, her body alive with desire and need, until she would finally give in to her temptations and touch herself, secretly, with the curtains around her bed drawn, long after she knew the other girls to be asleep. 

Perhaps they would have continued that way until she found a boy she liked well enough to give herself to, had it not been for Slughorn’s Christmas party. She had asked Cormac to accompany her, partially to spite Ron and partially to distract herself from thoughts of him. She couldn’t call him Professor Snape in her mind anymore; it felt too clinical. Nor could she bring herself to think of him as Severus; that name seemed too familiar, even in the confines of her head. In her mind, it was just him. Capital H. Him. 

Asking Cormac had been an enormous mistake. That had become exceptionally clear the moment he tried to pull her underneath the mistletoe. She considered, momentarily, letting him kiss her. But, just before he did, she saw Him. Lurking in the corner, watching her dispassionately. She panicked, leaving Cormac under the mistletoe. As she crept around the room, avoiding her dunderhead of a date, she had watched his conversation with Harry and Slughorn, then the spectacle with Malfoy. She watched as they left and Harry followed, thinking himself unseen. She slipped out after him and observed from the shadows as he threw the cloak on and disappeared. Part of her was tempted to follow him; she knew he was going to eavesdrop on Draco and Severus. 

Instead, she slipped through the shadows down to the dungeons. As she made her way through the silent, cold corridors, her confidence began to rise. All the doubts that had swirled through her mind fell away, and by the time she arrived outside his office, she was entirely sure of her way forward. She waited in an alcove near his office, behind a statue of Wilfred the Whim, cloaked in shadows. When Malfoy huffed past her, scratching at his left arm, she knew He would come soon. 

To her surprise, she never once gave thought to the inappropriateness of the relationship. She just knew, in her very core, that they would find a way to each other. Magic thrummed through her body and she knew he would find her there, waiting for him. He did not disappoint her. Moments after she became aware of his footsteps hurrying down the corridor, he invaded the small alcove with his presence. 

He had suspected to find a Slytherin lurking there; his face betrayed his surprise when he realized with whom he was sharing the tight space. “Miss Granger, you really should – ” She never allowed him to finish his sentence. Her arms wrapped around his neck and drew him to her in a passionate kiss. Once again, she felt the magic swirl around them.

Even now, she cannot recall how they found their way from the alcove to his office, or from his office to his chambers. In her memory his lips never left hers, though she supposes they must have, at least for a moment. Her mind and body buzzed with electricity as he kissed her deeply. She could feel his hardness pressing through his trousers and she felt herself flush with pride and power as she realized the effect she had on him. 

They exchanged no words; she remembers that much clearly. They seemed to know each other innately. He did not have to ask if she was a virgin; she did not have to ask if he would perform a contraceptive charm. They just knew. She had always expected her first time to be awkward, strained even. How delightfully wrong she was. He brought her to unimaginable heights with his head buried under her robes while she stood against the cold stone of the dungeon wall. When her knees buckled with her release, he carried her to his ornate bed and undressed her gently, delicately, as if he might break her. It hurt when he entered her, but not as much as she had anticipated. 

The magic, that undeniable, elemental force that had drawn them together, grew to a great crescendo as they came together, shouting their releases into the silent room. It was only then that he spoke. “Virgin blood,” he had said softly as he stroked his thumb against her cheek, “makes powerful anti-venom. May I?” When she agreed, he had summoned a small vial and gathered her blood silently. There was no need for other words. She saw all that she needed to in his eyes and in the gentle way he kissed her until morning, when she slipped away from him early enough to avoid all but the house-elves. 

There was never much discussion, or establishment of parameters. They never gave voice to fears of Voldemort, or being caught. They fell into an easy rhythm; some nights she would steal down to his office, some days he would look at her knowingly when he passed her in the hallway and she would come to him. It seems outrageous, in hindsight, how careless they were. She spent most of her nights in his chambers, taking her pleasures from the smoothness of his skin and the hardness of his body. Sometimes he made love to her sweetly. Sometimes he fucked her roughly against his desk. It never mattered to her, really. Regardless of how they were intimate, he always kissed her adoringly afterward. 

He never told her he loved her. He didn’t have to. She knew in the way he brought her a cup of tea in the morning before she snuck away; she knew in the way he taught her spell after spell in the seclusion of his chambers, desperately trying to impart any knowledge he could to her before the inevitable came. 

The night before the events of the Astronomy Tower, he made love to her desperately, like he had the first time. When he finished, he gathered her into his arms and told her everything, every horrid detail and deadly plan. The terrible thing about knowledge, she had realized that night, is that once given, it can never be taken back. She wept in his arms; wept for Harry and the hard truth he would have to learn, wept for Dumbledore and his fate, but mostly she wept for Severus. He had instructed her to call him Severus many months before, during one of their countless nights together. It felt right, somehow. “I love you, Severus,” she had whispered to him, clinging to him tightly after he told her all his terrible truths. 

He didn’t say it back. She hadn’t expected him to. Instead, he pressed a bottle of Essence of Dittany into her hands. “Stay alive,” he said, his eyes expressing everything he was unable to verbalize. “Stay alive, no matter the cost.”

Those words rang in her mind like a mantra over the next year. He had possessed far more foresight than she did; at the time, she could not grasp how often she would find strength in his words. She repeated them to herself when she packed her beaded bag to prepare for the Horcrux hunt. She repeated them to herself each time she placed the protection wards on the campsite. She repeated them when she allowed the Muggle grocer with bad breath to fuck her behind his shop in exchange for food to take back to the boys. She repeated Severus’ words and tried not to think of his gentle caresses and sandalwood scent. Magic could be traced, she reminded herself, but this type of exchange could not. 

Years later, when she told him of the Muggle grocer with the rough hands, he didn’t look at her in revulsion. He told her how proud he was of her resourcefulness and then spent hours kissing her softly, wiping away all memory of the horrid man with each gentle touch. They both had scars from the war; his were visible, hers were not. 

The memory of watching him receive the great scar on his neck still made her heart beat anxiously. Some nights she would dream of the terrible moment when the snake attacked him and she would be back in the boathouse, the same scared teenage girl who had felt utterly helpless. She would awaken suddenly, shaking and sick with fear. Her only comfort would come from laying her hand on his chest and feeling the gentle rise and fall of his breath, her reminder that he had survived. She would lay in the dark, listening to his soft snores and remind herself that she had saved him. Reminded her anxious heart that she had known what to do: she had found the anti-venom he carried, had stitched his wounds together with her magic and applied the Dittany he had given her. When he confessed to her from his hospital bed that the anti-venom that saved him was one made of her blood, she kissed his hand and considered, for the first time, that perhaps they were not drawn together by her maturity, but by fate. 

Everyone else assumed it was her maturity. “You’ve always been so mature,” Mrs. Weasley had said with glittering eyes as she embraced Hermione when they finally revealed their plans to marry. It had gone better than she anticipated; war had a strange way of putting things into perspective. Even Ron, who she imagined would never speak to her again, shook Severus’ hand grudgingly and offered them his best wishes. Harry, of course, had been over the moon. She had to admit that his newfound idolization of Severus smoothed the path substantially. Harry had used his considerable influence to ensure that Severus was cleared of all charges and awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class. 

They married on a Tuesday, the significance of which was a secret shared just between the two of them. Mrs. Weasley had attempted to persuade them to have a large wedding at the Burrow, but Severus, in his acerbic way, had quickly dismissed her of that notion. She loved him for that. After so much time in the spotlight, it was a relief to share this intimate moment without anyone else’s speculative glances. The ceremony, in a Ministry office, was simple and short. When it was over, he Apparated them to a secluded cottage along the shore: his gift to her. She had cried, then laughed as she told him about a prophecy Lavender Brown had made during Divination her third year, when she took Hermione’s palm and told her she would find her happiness by the sea. They made love on the floor of the cottage, too anxious and in love to make it up the stairs to the little bedroom where they would share so many nights. 

A year later, on their first wedding anniversary, he found her at the shore, illuminated by moonlight. “You look like you swallowed the moon,” he murmured, rubbing his hand across her expansive stomach. He told her his story then, about how glorious she had looked standing in the moonlight on the first night they kissed. “Selene,” he whispered to the child she carried in her womb. “Goddess of the Moon.” Hermione nodded in agreement.

She still finds it hard to reconcile the caustic Potions Master she knew with the indulgent husband and father she shares her life with now. Age, he is always quick to assure her, has made him lenient. In her mind, it’s less to do with age and more to do with the two dark haired little girls who look at him so adoringly and are always eager to watch him brew. Selene and Theia; his little Ravenclaws, as he calls them with such affection that it makes her knees weak. They are the embodiment of their mother: mature and intelligent, with unruly hair. Ravenclaws, he has decided, in spite of her admonishment that at just five and three years old it is impossible to know what traits they will have by the time they begin at Hogwarts. 

She wakes him one night, after her nightmare. “Are you all right?” he murmurs as he pulls her close. “Yes,” she assures him, taking great breaths of the sea air and his sandalwood scent. “Severus,” she says before he can drift back off to sleep, “what do you think drew us together?” She’s never asked him, even though it has been close to a decade since. He thinks for a moment. “Your maturity,” he decides finally. “You were wise far beyond your years. You were my equal from the moment you stepped in the door of my classroom your sixth year. It was terrifying.”

Hermione smiles against his chest. “It was more than that,” he confesses. “I was drawn to you like a moth to a flame. I couldn’t have resisted you, even if I tried. Magic has a mind of its own; I have no doubt our magic brought us together.” She nods in agreement, knowing his words are true. With Severus, she has always just known: she had known they would be together, had known that he loved her, and had known they would both survive the war. It was a strange confidence she felt: a byproduct of being a witch, perhaps. Maybe she had been too quick to discount Divination. 

Perhaps it is only the benefit of hindsight that makes her think she was totally confident in her decisions. The logical part of her believes that to be true. But a different part of her, an often-ignored part of her, sometimes feels her magic swirl like it did that night in the third floor corridor and she knows things. As she lies awake, listening to Severus snore softly, his face illuminated by the moonlight, she knows the child she carries – the child she hasn’t told him about yet – will be a boy. She knows she will name him Sebastian, and he will be a Slytherin like his father. He already exhibits Slytherin traits, sneaking into the world unexpectedly: very cunning and resourceful. 

Hermione sighs and drifts back to sleep once more. Divination, she decides, is still a very woolly discipline.


End file.
